State Board Votes to Assign Grades to Corinth and Special Schools

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: November 8, 2018

JACKSON, Miss – The Mississippi State Board of Education (SBE) today voted to assign unofficial letter grades for the 2017-18 school year to four schools that serve students with disabilities and the Corinth School District. The schools and district had not received grades in previous years.

State and federal law mandate that all schools and districts be evaluated using a single accountability system. There are no exclusions for schools with special populations.

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires that all students be included in measures of performance. The law requires those measures to be applied consistently so that schools that need improvement will be identified for support.

Accountability grades are based, in part, on how well students perform and progress from year to year on the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) tests for English language arts (ELA) and Mathematics. These tests are aligned to the Mississippi College and Career Ready Standards and are administered annually to students in grades 3-8 and in high school.

“State and federal laws require that all schools and districts be held to the same standard so that we have a clear picture of how well they are preparing students for the future,” said Dr. Jason Dean, SBE chair.

Unofficial grades for the schools and district are as follows:

* Schools and districts are assigned a grade that does not include the new English Learner (EL) component; however, the grade including the EL component is also reported.